Mastermind's Secret
by Startalons-Allroun
Summary: The actions of an IceWing long ago shifted the timelines. The NightWings never left, the war never started, and the prophecy was never written. Yet not all is well. A new danger is rising. When his home is visited by a strange NightWing, Starflight's normal life shatters. Before he has to flee, his father gives him a mission- find the other Dragonets of Destiny. (WOF au)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note- Hi! I'm Startalons-Allroun. I'm writing this story with the help of my friend Lemon, who even wrote a couple paragraphs here in the prologue and helped me edit. (Thanks Lemon!) Secondly, I apologize for the errors in the first posting of this, I tried to fix them in this version. If you ever see any typos or have any suggestions, feel free to tell me, I would love to hear them! Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you to Blueberrypietree and Dragonsmatter, who commented kindly even before I fixed the errors.**

 **Wings of Fire belongs to the amazing Tui T. Sutherland and Lemon is helping me write/cowriting the story.**

High in the sky, the three moons lit the plaza with their pearly radiance.

By that light, a dragon with scales darker than the night sky above could be seen flying low near the black stone ground. She was flying at a normal speed, but seemed rushed, clutching something securely in her talons for fear of dropping it.

The dragoness was holding an egg.

Perfectly smooth, the egg was the dark grey color of storm clouds but light enough to contrast with the jet-black of the dragon's scales. It was dark, but not the ebony black color of usual eggs, which worried its mother who was carrying it. Inside, the dragonet stirred, nearly ready to come out and see the world.

From the very beginning, she knew the dragonet would be smart. She could practically feel its curiosity, its desire to come out of the tight confines of its small egg and experience the world that was currently flying past it in the form of streets and houses. To be honest, she was almost as excited to meet it as it was to discover the world.

Finally, she spread her wings, flapped backwards to slow her momentum, and landed at the steps of a modest-looking house. Without a word, she climbed the steps and knocked at the mahogany door.

l-o-O-o-l

Mastermind had never believed in magic. And as a dragon of science, he never would.

However, standing there at that moment seemed just the tiniest bit magical, even to him

Farsight's tail was twined around his as they watched their egg rock ever-so-slightly from side to side in its nest. The nest was comprised of a shallow indent lined with soft furs. Both the nest and the egg were in the path of moonlight spilling from the open windowsill, moonlight that reflected off the egg's shiny surface and made it seem almost white.

Yes, this moment was perfect.

And then Farsight untwined her tail from his and prodded the egg with one claw, effectively ruining the mood.

"Are you sure it's okay," she asked. "It's all the wrong color. What if there's something wrong with her?

Mastermind let out a long-suffering sigh.

"It will be fine," he assured her. "Another egg looked like this as well, and the dragonet turned out okay. I'm sure that he or she will be just fine."

Before Farsight could reply, the egg began to rock more violently. Mastermind took Farsight's talon in his and squeezed it.

A crack appeared at the top of the shell, and the egg started moving even more. The crack in the egg spiderwebbed across the surface, as the dragonet continued its struggle for freedom. After three seconds, the egg stopped rocking. A few moments later, with a final jolt, part of the egg shattered and fell to the floor, revealing the extremely tiny snout of a NightWing dragonet.

"Ohhhhh," Farsight cooed as she rushed forward to pick it up. It was so tiny in her talons, but Mastermind still felt an overwhelming feeling of pride as he stood next to his dragonet and mate.

The dragonet's big, curious, hazel eyes met his and it squeaked adorably. It seemed overjoyed to discover that it had not just one, but two parents! Farsight allowed him to hold it, and he did so gratefully.

The dragonet was inky black, with the cutest little expression on its tiny face that said _Oh, so that's what my dad looks like, I've been wanting to mee him._

It was a male dragonet, with peculiar silver scales by his eyes that looked like tears. It seemed happy and excited, but also seemed to be thinking the world was a bit louder than it expected. Mastermind noted that it's wings had the same inward clusters of stars that his did, proving further that the wing star patterns were likely to be genetic, but he was too excited to think about it then.

 _I'm a dad!_ He thought. Technically, he had a stepchild, but now he was a real, honest dad! He felt like flying up, up, up, and declaring the fact to the whole Night Kingdom. But that was not possible, given the area of the Night Kingdom was quite large, and that the sound of a grown dragon's voice could only travel- Nevermind, he'd think of that later.

"What will we call him," he inquired of Farsight, who was by his side with a wing around his shoulders.

"I think we'll call him Starflight."

l-o-O-o-l

Over the next few weeks, Mastermind tried to focus on his experiments, but as a new father of a baby dragonet and another dragonet who loathed it entirely, he found it nearly impossible.

There were so many new responsibilities to attend to. Beforehand he had thought being a father to a dragonet who was constantly bothering him and trying to get his attention was hard, but this put it to shame. He was constantly doing things to keep the two out of trouble.

"Fierceteeth, stop trying to cover your brother in dirt!"

"No, don't touch that, Starflight!"

"Put him down!"

"Wait! You're about to break that! … Nevermind, I'll just have to get a new one."

And he was 99.8 percent sure that Fierceteeth was trying to murder her baby brother. She kept on giving him glares whenever he toddled past her, and discreetly tripping him when he tried to run. Mastermind had also found small objects in Starflight's nest. Luckily, he had just managed to stop Starflight from swallowing them and choking on any of them. It was getting out of hand.

Though he did have an enormously hard time dealing with the chaos and less time to do research, he thoroughly enjoyed being a father. Starflight was growing up so fast and even saying a few words! It was unusual for a dragonet Starflight's age to know so many words and speak so fluently. He was extremely proud of his son.

However, he was also a bit concerned for Starflight's health. He tended to sleep talk, mumbling strange things and creative nonsense that would make a writer jealous. The tiny dragonet was constantly squinting, and seemed to have impaired vision. Mastermind hypothesized that the bad migraines and continual headaches that Starflight got were connected to this.

One day Starflight was watching Mastermind work on a project in his lab, humming his usual little rowdy-sounding tune that sounded like some kind of bar song. Happy that his son was taking an interest in his work, he lifted him on top of the table there. Mastermind realized he had left a spruce stick that he needed on the counter behind him, and he turned to get it.

He felt his tail brush up against something and heard a sickening thunk sound. In panic, he whipped around again.

Starflight was miraculously fine, standing to the side of a large cauldron that had fallen right where he had been standing.

 _But… I thought he was… How did he move so fast? He has such bad vision… I wouldn't have thought…_

Starflight seemed unfazed and completely unaware of his father's confusion. He then proceeded to climb into the cauldron that had nearly killed him and peek out of it, cocking his head at Mastermind's confused face.

 _Oh well, at least he's safe. He has such fast reflexes. What a lucky step._ Mastermind turned back to his work.

The next day, Fierceteeth started coughing, each breath seeming to rattle in her small chest. Farsight became frantic as the night came on, and the coughing began to sound more violent. The coughs started to sound like a dying goose. He could identify the cause as a sickness that infected young dragons and made it extremely hard for them to breathe for its duration. When he told Farsight that the sickness could potentially be lethal and there was no cure, she almost had a panic attack.

Mastermind knew the illness had to run its course. He also knew that fretting about it wouldn't do anything, but Farsight insisted on staying at Fierceteeth's bedside all night.

Several days later, after a couple of scary moments when Fierceteeth couldn't breathe for a few seconds, she finally began to feel better. By the second day of recovery, she could go outside again and was back to playing rowdily with her friends. But he noticed that Farsight was spending a lot more time with her and there hadn't been any attempts on Starflight's life in several days. Maybe all Fierceteeth had wanted was a little more attention.

With so much spare time on his talons due to Fierceteeth's absence, he could finally try and find a cure for his son's condition. He was thinking about trying glasses if the headaches and migraines had something to do with that, but he wasn't sure if it was going to help with the seizures that Starflight had been having. It was worth a try, however. He started to monitor his young son a bit more closely.

Secretly, of course, Mastermind wanted it to be a surprise.

He started writing down many of the things Starflight said, and even the silly things, hoping some of it could give him some insight to his son's problem. Though Starflight was creative, nothing he said seemed to lead to any conclusions.

Not many things happened, except for the growing intensity of Starflight's seizures. It got kind of scary, to be honest.

He would randomly cry out at times, collapsing and curling up in a fetal position. It pained him to see Starflight curled up like that, looking so frail and in pain with his talons clasped to his head over his ears and horns. He would quietly mumble garbled things, sounding panicked as if he had something urgent to say. He shivered and jolted slightly, and did so even as Mastermind picked him up and wrapped his wings around him until the seizure came to an end.

Mastermind vowed he would do anything to make it stop.

l-o-O-o-l

One Year Later…

"Hey Daddy," came a little voice from Mastermind's left.

"Oh, good morning Starflight!" Mastermind turned away from his little project and nuzzled Starflight's side, causing the dragonet to giggle and yelp.

"Do you have a book I could borrow? It's rainy and I don't really wanna play with Fierceteeth anyway…"

Mastermind blinked at the sudden request. Starflight had never asked him for a book before. He swiveled his head to look at the scroll rack at the back of the room across from the door of his lab.

He didn't have any dragonet picture scrolls for Starflight's age group, and even though Starflight was extremely intelligent, he doubted he would understand Formulas for Estimating Geographical Climate (Pocket Edition) or many of his other scrolls just yet.

However…

He looked at his son, who was fiddling uncomfortably with his black metal bracelet due to the long period of silence. His round glasses mastermind bought for him had started slipping down his snout, and he finally noticed his father's staring. Starflight met Mastermind's gaze with his own confused expression.

Mastermind looked at the scroll rack again, remembering again how terrible and helpless he felt when Starflight used to have those terrible seizures. He felt guilty and also felt he owed Starflight something.

And besides… He did have a perfectly good set of scrolls that he could read to Starflight…


	2. Chapter 1- Find the Others

**Three Moons! I didn't know there were going to be so many no-prophecy stories! I kind of feelt guilty for jumping on the bandwagon when there were only two of those, and now including mine there are more! I will try to make mine as original as possible. On another note, I am extremely sorry for not posting for so long! I do not have writer's block, in fact I have been writing ahead for the time I get writer's block. (I know it will come eventually, but when it does I'll try and get over it quickly.) Now I will try and post more-or-less regularly, hopefully every week. I haven't quite set on a day, however, so just... stay tuned, I suppose.**

 **Lastly, Lemon is helping me out with this story (I'm so freaking excited for her 473-5 marathon!) and Wings of fire and it's original characters belongs to Tui T. Sutherland**.

Chapter 1-

Starflight had grown up on stories. When he was younger, he used to spend hours at his father's side, listening to him tell stories about the "Dragonets of Destiny" By S. NightWing, except instead Mastermind would always change the names in the scroll from Silt, Iridescence, Wren and Cyclone to Clay, Glory, Sunny and Tsunami. And the NightWing in the Dragonets of Destiny, Cometclaw, was always Starflight.

When asked why he told it that way, he replied "Because those names are better."

Other than that little detail and a handful of other names, Mastermind kept the book the same. The father and son would spend hours reading the books. He practically had the entire thing memorized, and knew the prophecy by heart.

Now, though Starflight still enjoyed a reread every now and then, he usually read Mastermind's more informational scrolls. He was his father's unofficial lab assistant, though Strongwings was the part-time official one.

Thank goodness Strongwings was only a part-time assistant, however. Almost every time he tried to help it ended in some type of explosion. He could explode things that Starflight didn't even know could explode. But that didn't stop Fierceteeth from going crazy over him. Though she acted really passive and cool around everyone, especially Strongwings, he could see past the act. She really liked him, and Starflight could also tell that Strongwings liked her back, though that one was much easier to figure out.

He desperately wanted to go up to the pair sometimes and yell "You both love each other! For the three moon's sakes, just get married already!" to both of their faces, but according to Mastermind, that wasn't how socializing went. He didn't quite understand how dragon society and talking worked, and it was much less awkward when he was working with science where everything made sense.

Speaking of things that made no sense…

On the floor was the remains of yet another broken glass vial. He walked in the door to his father's lab, and saw him attempting to sweep up the sparkling shards with a cloth over the harder top part of his tail. He had his arms completely full of miscellaneous items, and even his wings were folded with scrolls and maps tucked underneath. When he spotted Starflight, he almost dropped everything in surprise but managed to keep them in his hold. His tail, however, whipped in surprise and the white cloth came off.

"Oh, hello to you, Starflight! I wasn't expecting to see you there," Mastermind said in greeting. His tail started to sweep again without the cloth, but after the first stroke he pulled it back in surprise, with a bit of glass sticking in between his scales. The sudden motion sent crystalline specks flying across the floor into the back of the room.

"Oh, now look what I've went and done," Mastermind growled softly to himself.

"Here, let me help," Starflight said, grabbing the broom in the corner of the room before Mastermind could protest about being able to do it himself. The broom handle was worn and some of the straw had broken off, but it still worked well, and before long he had the broken glass swept into a neat pile out of the way and Mastermind had put all the items in his talons away.

Sweeping the rest of the shards into the trash bin gave Starflight a few moments to consider how oddly jumpy and easily startled his father had been recently.

Fierceteeth walked in and tapped Mastermind on the shoulder to ask him something. Mastermind's wings opened in surprise and all the scrolls tumbled out, leaving him frantically trying to pick them all up and put them under his wings again.

See? Very jumpy, Starflight thought.

"Are you expecting anyone," Fierceteeth asked in her raspy voice. It had been that way since she had gotten sick as a child, or so his parents said. He didn't remember anything before his second birthday, so he couldn't imagine her sounding any different way. "I was going to tell him to get lost and eat his tail, but I decided telling you would be a better idea because then he could bore you to death instead."

"No…" Mastermind said, answering her first question. But it didn't sound like an answer, instead it sounded almost hopeful. "Starflight and Fierceteeth, please let him in, I'll be there in a minute."

He shooed them out of his lab, and Starflight started walking to the front door with his half-sister.

"Have you noticed he's been acting weird lately?" Starflight questioned.

"No," Fierceteeth responded with certainty. "Why would I notice what he's been acting like? You're the one who's been hanging out with him, and he's not even my dad."

Starflight picked up on the small emphasis on the words 'not even my dad' when Fierceteeth spoke. Though he was absolutely terrible at reading between the lines of other people's speech, he could tell a lot about his family's feelings when they spoke. He also happened to know that Fierceteeth was still upset about not ever getting to know her father, and was jealous that Starflight got to grow up with his.

"Fierceteeth, I'm sorry that you never met your dad but I know that if he was alive I think he'd most likely, probably, want-"

Fierceteeth got to the door and yanked it open into Starflight's snout.

"Please come in and talk with Mr. Stillsky the Science Guy," she growled to the visitor, referencing a popular science play, "because I'm pretty sure you're looking for him, just please be quiet until we get to him, I've had it with dragons in general for the day."

The large dragon with dark blueish under scales blinked at Fierceteeth's unusual greeting.

"Please forgive me for intruding, Fierceteeth, but I must speak with Mastermind now. It is extremely urgent."

"Well, I'm not gonna stop you, but I don't get why you're wanting to see that talk-your-ears-off dragon." She shrugged and casually shut the door with a kick of her hind leg. Starflight rubbed his sore snout, already regretting trying to comfort his sister. It never really ended well...

"Starflight, could you please come with me to your father's lab?" Asked the visitor. Starflight could have sworn he knew this dragon from somewhere. Maybe he works at the school, Starflight thought. I didn't do anything wrong though…

He started to follow the strange visitor, but before he could take a few steps, he felt a biting pain on his tail that made him yelp. He looked back to see Fierceteeth stepping down hard on his tail. She had her head close to his, and was looking at him menacingly.

"Don't ever mention my dad," she hissed, then walked away towards her room.

"Sorry," he mumbled, but Fierceteeth was already too far away to hear.

He then continued to follow the visitor, still trying to figure out his identity. Starflight's mind was trying to stamp down all the questions going through his mind, Why does he know where the lab is? Why am I coming with? He had to answer himself with half-answers, such as Well, it's probably one of his co-workers…

They came down into Mastermind's lab, where panting could be heard from inside. The visitor went in first, and Starflight went in close after.

Starflight could see Mastermind in the center of the room, looking tired enough to collapse. He seemed to be hyperventilating, with his four legs spread outwards slightly as if he was bracing himself for a sudden impact. His head hung low, and he was in the middle of a covering of burnt ashes all around the floor, which would explain the tendrils of smoke drifting lazily around the room.

For the life of him, Starflight could not make any kind of sense of what was happening.

The strange new dragon rushed to Mastermind's side and helped him up when he started to fall.

"I… gathered them all here and... and burned them all," he said between pants triumphantly.

"All of them," the visitor asked incredulously. "All that work?"

"Of course all of them, I would do anything to-" then Mastermind bent over to cough out smoke. The dragon holding him looked very concerned.

"Are you okay, Mastermind?"

"Stop worrying about me, Nightfall, I've just never breathed that much fire… Well, and I don't run very much…" Nightfall chuckled at that. But the mood seemed to darken again as Nightfall turned somber.

"You were right, Mastermind. I wish I could say you weren't."

"I… Just didn't expect them so soon. It's too soon…" Mastermind finally got up and dusted ash off himself. "Are Farsight and Fierceteeth going somewhere safe as of now?"

"Yes. They should be escorted and already on their way right now. But you and Starflight need to leave, and soon. It's not safe here anymore."

"What do you mean, it's not safe," Starflight asked, interrupting for the first time. "Who's coming? And three moons, what is going on?!"

The two adult dragons turned their attention to Starflight. Before either could speak, there as a knock at the door, hard and not exactly friendly-sounding.

Mastermind froze, but Nightfall ran to the far corner of the room and pushed a table aside to get to a half-empty scroll shelf. He pushed hard, and it moved, revealing a dark hole underneath it, barely big enough for a large dragon Nightfall's size to squeeze through, though Mastermind and Starflight wouldn't have a lot of trouble.

"Come on," he called. "Quickly!"

Starflight wasted no time getting to the hole, and half-climbed, half-fell into it. It was dark and smelled like dust, and rock, but where Nightfall was, it widened into a tunnel. He began to follow the large dragon who was rapidly disappearing into the darkness of the tunnel, but soon realized something- Mastermind was not behind him.

He stopped immediately, going back to the entrance.

Mastermind was there, attempting to push the scroll shelf.

"D-dad?" Starflight asked in shock. "What are you doing?"

"Starflight… I have to-"

"No," Starflight breathed, finally realizing what his father was intending to do. "no no, no, nononononoNO!" His eyes started to burn, and he felt a horrible feeling of dread in his stomach. "I need you! I can't leave you! I WON'T LEAVE YOU," he cried.

"Starflight," Mastermind said taking Starflight's talons in his. "These people coming- if they found you- they would kill you. I can't let that happen." His voice started to crack with sadness. "I can't let it happen because of what I… I…"

His father paused and closed his eyes for a second to let out a shaky breath and breathe deeply.

"Powers, Starflight. They're real… I've seen…" he stopped yet again, as there was an explosion sound back from the door.

"Starflight." His father said with newfound urgency. "Go with Nightfall. I would trust him with my life, and I am trusting him with yours. You mean everything to me. And now I know what could have been, if fate had been changed. Take this scroll," he said, shoving a scroll into his talons.

Starflight looked down at the scroll, finding it was a scroll of all the Dragonets of Destiny novels by S. NightWing.

"But… What… This is a scroll- it isn't real-"

"Find them," Mastermind commanded. "Warn them. You need to find the others. Find the Dragonets."

Starflight clutched the scroll and nodded, in a daze with his father's words swirling in his head.

Mastermind gave his son the briefest of smiles, filled with grim determination, sadness, pride, and so many other things that Starflight couldn't place.

Then he slammed the scroll shelf back in place, and thrust the tunnel into darkness.

 **Thanks for all the kind feedback on the story, and I will try and post more! Any suggestions and feedback are always welcome! Happy Almost-Thanksgiving!**


	3. Chapter 2- Out of the Tunnel

_Hi! I am **so** sorry about the long wait between chapters for those of you that are still reading this, and I will try to fix that! To the people who still read this even after my terrible updating problem, thank you! And to the super kind people in the reviews, thank you so much for the kind feedback! To _Theepicduck _, I hope this chapter and the next will answer your question... Or not, what I have planned for the story is pretty confusing even to me! And as always, feel free to review and give any suggestions you may have!_

 _Wings of Fire belongs to Tui T. Sutherland and I'm getting help from Lemon._

 _Find the others. Find the Dragonets._

 _Find the others. Find the Dragonets_.

Mastermind's words were on repeat in Starflight's brain. Nightfall- the dragon that his father knew, the dragon that Mastermind trusted, the dragon that knew more than he did about what was happening and and who was supposed to protect him while his own father might be getting killed- had come, taken him by his arm and pulled him down the tunnel.

 _Find the others. Find the Dragonets._

 _Find the others. Find the Dragonets_.

The walls passed by in fast-forward, and he felt barely felt aware of his surroundings, as if he were in a book and seeing the world from outside. His mind felt numb, and for once, he was grateful for that. It hurt too much to think, to remind himself of the fact that his father was gone, and that he was now going away from the only home he had ever known. So instead of struggling and trying to go back to his father, he let himself be led.

 _Find the others. Find the Dragonets_.

It pained him to know that he would have to remember again. Yet he could not forget.

 _Find_ _the_ _Dragonets_.

Starflight cried. He didn't care if Nightfall could see him. The larger dragon was still rushing forward with the same breakneck pace he had started with. With each step, he was traveling farther away from everything he had ever known, and stepping towards an uncertain destiny.

 _Find the Dragonets_.

The two dragons burst out of the tunnel. Starflight took one more step and collapsed. He couldn't get up at that moment, his whole body ached and his talons were bleeding. Drifting off to sleep under the sun felt almost like a sin when he should be saving the world, but he was too tired to continue further. The world started fading to black as he fell into a deep sleep.

 _Find the Dragonets_.

l-o-O-o-l

"Starflight, Starflight, wake up."

Starflight couldn't recognize the voice at first, but he _really_ didn't want to wake up. He felt heavy, like he hadn't slept in a week.

The voice sighed, and then Starflight felt himself be pushed and rolled onto his back. His glasses fell off, but at the moment he didn't care.

After a few seconds, he thought it was over, but then he was rolled even faster than before. He opened his eyes, seeing the blurry moonlit ground go past extremely fast.

WooaAA _AHHH_!" Starflight yelped as he was pushed into a pile of wet leaves.

"I told you to wake up," a large dragon with slightly crooked horns said, backing away a few paces to sit on a rock and looking extremely smug.

 _Who is this dragon_ , Starflight asked himself in confusion, _and where am… I…_

His thoughts trailed off as many memories came flooding back, each attempting to claw its way to his focus. He remembered Nightfall's visit, and how Mastermind had burned a lot of something on the floor and that there was a freakishly long secret tunnel that they ran through and...

And his father was gone.

 _He's dead_ , whispered a traitorous part of his mind. The pit of his stomach felt like ice with dread. He's gone, he's gone, I should have stayed to save him-

 _NO, NO, he is NOT DEAD_ , he argued with himself.

It all just didn't make sense. It was like his world had been turned inside out and someone placed him into it without telling him what was going on. And now all he had to navigate by was one command that made even less sense. Find four fictional characters all over Pyrihhia and warn them about some danger he didn't know anything about.

"Starflight, we have to get started of we're going to get to the Scorpion Den by tomorrow morning."

"The Scorpion Den," Starflight asked, trying to change his thoughts from his dire situation. Although he practically already knew the answer to his question. "Why are we going there?"

"Mastermind said something about a 'Sunny' there, though he didn't exactly specify where exactly where she was in the Scorpion Den."

"Oh." He had heard rumors about the Scorpion Den before, of the terrifying band of criminal SandWings who called themselves the Outclaws, defying Queen Oasis and controlling the desert city with an iron grip. He and Nightfall would be in a lot of danger there. Starflight became even more queasy after that. He was scared- scared he was never going to see his dad again, scared that they wouldn't find Sunny, or that she wasn't even real and scared that if he did find the Dragonets he wouldn't know what to do by then. Most of all he was scared of failing. All in all, he was terrified. To try and focus on anything other than his fear, Starflight started to feel around the tall grass to find his glasses. It was difficult, as he couldn't see a lot of things in the darkness without them. In addition, his talons were extremely sore from the crazed flight through the tunnel the day before, and he could feel a myriad of cuts and scrapes that had scabbed over insisting on reminding him of their presence. "Do we have to go so late in the night?

"It'd be much safer to travel in the night. In the daytime, there are a lot more dragons around, especially in the other kingdoms."

Starflight's talons brushed up against something hard, and he got it out of the grass. It felt heavy and thick, and it's outline certainly didn't _look_ like his glasses.

And then it _moved._

"Snake!" He yelped, leaping back quickly. The snake dropped back down to the floor, making a rustling sound when it hit the dry grass,

"Starflight… That was my tail."

He was glad it was night and that he had black scales, because if he didn't, Nightfall would have seen his embarrassed blushing. _If I was with Fierceteeth, I would never live that down,_

 _But then again, I'm_ not _with Fierceteeth. I really hope_ _she's safe right now._

Starflight's own tail brushed up against something he could tell was his glasses. He grabbed them quickly and put them on.

Nightfall looked as if he was still trying to hold in a laugh. _Three moons, did I look that surprised?_

"Well then," Nightfall said after clearing his throat, gratefully trying to save Starflight from his own embarrassment. "To the Scorpion den."

Starflight nodded, looking up at the one moon out that night. It was still the same; pearly white with black speckles of skyfire that had crashed onto it long ago, just like the other moons. It was comfortingly familiar in his strange new world.

Nightfall began to spread his wings to take off, and Starflight did the same. With a couple of strong flaps, the two were in the air.

Wind whistled under his wings, and it played and danced all around him. Ahead of them was a stream, sparkling with reflected moonlight from above. The night was peaceful for the most part, but Starflight couldn't help but feel anxious. And it wasn't the fear of his situation. (though that was pretty prevalent also) His stomach felt queasy and he kept on unconsciously fiddling with his bracelet, which he knew was never a good sign.

 _Nightfall is right there, and I have my glasses_ , Starflight thought uneasily. _So why do I feel as if I'm forgetting something?_


End file.
